“We're not looking to go buy another big company” said chief operating officer John Bryant at Tuesday’s Deutsche Bank Global Consumer and Retail Food Conference in Paris. “We’re likely to buy businesses in our categories. There is not a lot of cereal businesses out there to buy. That tends to take you to snacks.”
Bryant said a series of modest bolt-on acquisitions outside North America, to increase international presence, would be Kellogg’s preferred approach.
Senior vice president Paul Norman added that the company was also looking for synergies to expand its ready to eat cereals category in countries where its presence was limited.
A partnership with Turkish firm Ülker has made access markets in this region possible, he said.
Relationships in China and Russia were also said to have enabled the firm to test the markets and unearthed potential to expand beyond these borders.
Norman said unequivocally: “We are going to be in China. The question is how and how big and when?”